Growing chorus of GOP lawmakers urging caution on Medicaid rate cuts

Thursday brought another round of Republican lawmakers publicly objecting to the way the state's health agency has planned to implement cuts to Medicaid therapy rates, which health care providers and parents have said will hurt children with disabilities the most.

"I am calling on the LBB to lessen the impact of the drastic cuts to services in rural Texas," tweeted state Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, a veteran House lawmaker who is not running for re-election. State Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, said "we need to consider the full magnitude of these rate cuts on the young Texans who require long-term therapy assistance."

On Wednesday, state Rep. Rick Galindo, R-San Antonio, wrote to Chris Traylor, the Health and Human Services Commission chief, about his "adamant dissent to the proposed reduction in funds."

"I believe these cuts will have several unintended consequences for the most vulnerable of our state's population," Galindo wrote.

Thursday afternoon, House Speaker Joe Straus, who co-chairs on the Legislative Budget Board, became the first of state's Big Three to publicly address the issue that has a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers clamoring for attention.

"I expect the Commission to keep us in compliance with federal law as it works through a new proposal," Straus, R-San Antonio, wrote on his Facebook page. "I also believe it is the agency's responsibility to inform the Legislature if the proposed reductions would harm access to care and network adequacy."

The speaker concluded: "I will continue to monitor this issue closely as HHSC considers how best to implement these reductions. It is important to me and many of my House colleagues that HHSC implement these rate changes in a way that does not harm access to care."

For all those who have come out swinging against the HHSC plan to implement the legislature-approved cuts, hardly anyone has come out in defense of them. Of course, the personal stories of young Texans who have lived with disabilities their whole lives and who now could lose access to services they and their families rely on is nearly impossible to argue against.

To some extent, every lawmaker who voted for the state budget in May is responsible for effectively allowing Traylor and the process to get this far. Several members, including those who voted for the budget, have acknowledged as much. If numbers are the language of power at the Capitol, it was as clear then as it is now that more than enough lawmakers supported the cuts on paper, driven, in part, by concerns that the therapy payout rates in Texas were higher than industry standards.

The final budget passed the Senate 30-1 and the House 115-33.

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